Why I Miss Venice Beach

I've been back East for the last six years, Manhattan for five, then last fall missed the water so much I moved to the beaches of Westport, Connecticut. It's beautiful here but the Long Island Sound ain't no Pacific.

Kwaku Alston's photographs of the Venice that we both love appeared in the New York Times today and hit me like a love letter out of the blue. Venice, CA, is one of the most-interesting places on the planet and the distillation of everything that is magical, lovely, dangerous and heartbreaking about Southern California.

Kwaku is practically the mayor of Venice, a world-famous photographer who's shot on every continent and everyone from the Obamas to Oscar winners. Seeing this global citizen finally train his lens on his own backyard is at once exhilarating and intimate.

If you live there and have forgotten why, look at your beach through his eyes and fall in love again. If you're like me and moved away, let the pang heavy your heart.
Check them out.

 

 

 

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Comments

[trailerguy]

12:49 PM on 12/24/2011

I remember venice in 60's be run down, seedy. Then a rebirth as bohemnian move there and revitlalized. The it bcame a mecca for the well to do.

[behavingbadly]

01:56 PM on 12/21/2011

Venice may be the ONLY truly interesting place left in greater LA. I lived there for two years after moving from NY, and loved it; but I barely get a hint of its character from Alston's photos. They're snapshots without context. I recognize that they were taken IN Venice, of people IN Venice—but they don't evince the slightly off-kilter, not quite fully realized character of the place.

[cityprole]

01:45 PM on 12/21/2011

Left LA in '72, and so much that I don't miss..but these photos remind me, not that I needed reminding, of a wonderful beachy past that would be incredible to revisit..sad? A bit, yes, but you can't go home again..or at least, I can't..
Thanks for sharing these, they made me smile...

[susanbsbi]

06:44 PM on 12/20/2011

I left LA in 1994, and still pine for it. It is hard on most people who lived there for a long time and they leave.